University of Rome III – Languages for International Communication –  Patrick Boylan
Università Roma Tre - CdS in Lingue e Comunicazione Internazionale –
 Patrick Boylan


Return


Web Searches
Ricerche in Internet

1. . .<for translation aids (glossaries, multilingual dictionaries...).
Click
. . .per sussidi alla traduzione (glossari, dizionari mulitlingue...).

2. . . for academic/bibliographic research (dissertations...),.
Click. . per ricerche bibliografiche di carattere academico (per la tesi...).

3. . .<for factual data of the almanac kind (who's who, statistics...).
Click
. . .per dati tipo inchiesta giornalistica (albi, dati statistici).

But first, those who are not expert users of the Internet should read the
Instruction Sheet on How to use the Internet intelligently: click here.
Ma prima, chi non è un esperto navigatore in Internet dovrebbe leggere
il Manuale per un uso intelligente di Internet (inglese):
cliccare qui.





Sites/reference works specificially for translation
Siti/opere utili specificamente per la traduzione

For a more complete list / Per una lista più estesa, click› pag. 2.


Dictionaries
PiazzaDante: . Italiano . . Inglese-Italiano   –  . .Garzanti (italiano, inglese-italiano)

Logos Group Homepage . . Multilingual Dictionary
yourDictionary.com .(Dictionaries 70 languages) (cache – out of date/superata)
Cambridge Dictionary
Webster's Dictionary,. Thesaurus . . Yahoo! Thesaurus. - .Lexico Dictonary, Thesaurus
Visual Thesaurus Fantastic! (N.B. Your PC must have Java installed!)

Reference works / Opere di consultazione
OLE  phrase checker for English . (largest corpus)
Encyclopaedia Britannica..(homePage) . .Columbia Encyclopaedia . .
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
The Elements of Style (1918 edition)

For translating computer journals (English, French)::
Online Dictionary of Computing
Computing Glossary (French) . (French definitions of French computing terms.)





 

   ALA   American Library Association

   


Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher

Developed and maintained by Pat Ensor

Tired of endless lists of Web search tools that give you no guidance as to which ones to use? Or that were last updated when Gophers were alive? I'm inviting you to look over my shoulder and use what I use every day for Web searching in an academic library. I keep up with this stuff so you don't have to!

[Subject Guides] [Search Engines] [News Searching] [Metasearch Engines and Search Engine Collections] [Global Searching] [Multimedia Searching] [The Invisible Web] [Search Engine News]


Subject Guides

Subject guides involve human intervention in selecting and organizing resources, so they cover fewer resources but provide more focus and guidance for topics they cover. Use them to start searching for broad topics.

Open Directory Project Another human-edited subject resource with well-chosen and annotated sources. My first stop in any general search.

Librarians' Index to the Internet Organized and maintained by librarians, aimed at information of interest in public libraries.

WWW Virtual Library A sprawling network of information guides in a huge array of academic topics.

Internet Scout Project More oriented toward academia, covers resources in business and economics, social sciences, and science and engineering.

Academic Info Not as large as some of the other directories, but a laudable attempt to gather resources of interest in academic research.

BUBL LINK / 5:15 Catalogue of Selected Internet Resources Limited in scope -- tries "to guarantee at least 5 relevant resources for every subject included," but no more than 15 to 35 -- but a good place to go for "a few good resources on" an academic topic. Usable arrangement and good annotations.

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Search Engines

Search engines produce their results from databases of Web page content, automatically created by computers. They are not all the same! They vary according to database size and content, searching capabilities, and how they rank results. Don't give up on a search until you've tried at least 2 to 3 search engines and/or metasearch engines.

Google One of the two largest databases, excellent relevance ranking, "similar pages" and caching feature, also searches Open Directory categories. Doesn't support full Boolean searching. Indexes many PDF documents.

AllTheWeb The other largest database. Allows Boolean searching in the advanced mode. Relevance ranking generally not as good as Google, but a good second stop in searching.

MSN Search Uses Inktomi index, which provides moderate-sized database. Advanced Search makes all of Inktomi's search features available. Allows Boolean searching. Can also search for file types.

Teoma Accesses moderate-sized database, but has some unique features to aid searchers and sometimes finds rare items. Advanced search includes very useful features, although not Boolean searching.


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News Searching

Since search engines aren't "real-time" indexes, your favorite search engine may provide inadequate coverage of the news. Here are some good tools that allow you to search a variety of news sources at one time.

Alta Vista - News Search thousands of current news sources. Allows Boolean searching.

RocketNews Searches a wide range of sources, has some advanced capabilities, and searches up to 5 days of material. Sorts materials by relevance, though, not by date.

NewsNow U.K.-based and very frequently updated. Has a search feature that should get you a lot on breaking news.

AllTheWeb News Search This search engine is making a special effort to index "fresh" news, crawling 3000 news sources constantly. Good search capabilities, and tells you how recently the source located was indexed.

Google News Crawls over 4,500 news sources, with results produced entirely by computer algorithms. Indexes back 30 days. Only has basic Google search abilities.

Yahoo! News The added value of finding a topic in Yahoo's Full Coverage is that it provides news summaries, news multimedia, related Web sites, and message boards. Has a number of news searching options at the top of the page.

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Metasearch Engines and Search Engine Collections

Why not just use a metasearch engine for every search? They aren't guaranteed to cover all the largest Web databases, they do unknown things with your search statement, and they frequently give you only a limited number of listings from each site. But the best of them are a quick, useful supplement to search engines.

Fazzle Defaults to a more focused, yet complete, set of Web search engines than other tools, allowing for higher relevance while drawing on many sources. Has preview feature. Formerly known as Search Online.

ez2Find Searches the top search engines and directories (although you can't customize the selection), in addition to providing many specialized search categories. Results include various viewing options.

Ixquick A very good compilation metasearch tool -- translates your search syntax, doesn't run searches on engines that can't accept them, compiles search results and eliminates duplicates, assigns stars for number of appearances in top ten.

Metor Search A great tool! Search capabilities are unsophisticated, but you can set your timeout, the list of engines searched is right up front. Good relevance ranking, and get a load of the special Check, Analyze, and Browse features that allow you to see your words in context and easily navigate through your results.

VivisimoSearches a selection of high-quality resources and presents results in a very useful way. Has a preview feature.

ProFusion.com Strength is in the careful choice of search sites and the metasearch subsets.

Fossick.com WebSearch Alliance Chooses engines to metasearch dynamically. Great collection of specialty sites.

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Global Searching

Even though it's the "World" Wide Web, many of the largest and best known search tools come from a United States perspective. Try some of these tools to get a more global view.

Search Engine Colossus Primary strength is the country-by-country listing of search tools, but also lists some tools with an international flavor in non-geographic categories. Extensive and well-maintained. Includes links to various language versions of the different tools.

Nations Online For each country, groups Web sites of government entities, search engines, and more. Very up-to-date, spotlights high-interest countries.

European Search Engines Focuses on Europe, often providing more resources in a country than others. Also includes handy links to national newspapers.

Ithaki Allows metasearching in at least 14 languages, with specially-created national metasearches of at least 15 countries.

Fossick.com Web Search Alliance Try its "Everywhere" section for specific regions' search tools. Also includes "Region" field with its Meta Search Engine to limit your search to a particular country.

CNET Search.com - International The sections on individual countries allows you to metasearch a collection of engines from that country, not that common a function.

Search Engines Worldwide Links to over 1000 search tools in more than 130 countries.

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Multimedia Searching

FAST Multimedia Search Claims to access the largest selection of multimedia; can search images, audio, video, or all media. Advanced searching allows specification of formats and types for each medium.

Alta Vista Choose multimedia format from the top page. Allows some specification of formats.

Google Image Search Claims to be most comprehensive image search on Web. Has some special image searching capabilities in "Advanced Image Search."

Singingfish Multimedia Search Outstanding! The best place to look for streaming media. Goes beyond music, allows specification of audio and video, software format, and length.

Friskit Music Streaming media search primarily aimed at music. Allows specification of audio or video, as well as length of piece.

Fossick Online Multimedia and Digital Image Search Lots more multimedia sites.

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The Invisible Web

What about that other part of the Web you're not covering with search engines? A lot of it is covered by these resources. For a good definition of the Invisible Web, go to the Help function of InvisibleWeb.com. When searching the invisible Web, plan to locate the category of material you want, then browse. Don't be too specific in your searches.

Direct Search - Search Tools and Directories Excellent, frequently updated, academically-oriented site developed by librarian Gary Price.

InvisibleWeb.com Consumer-oriented, but valuable for academia, too. Does well at categorizing and describing resources.

InternetsLists thousands of databases by broad categories, including the ability to search some of them directly.

FirstGov "The official Website for searching the U.S. government" needs further development, but is already a tool that pulls together a substantial part of the Invisible Web: federal government databases.

GPO Access Provides free online use of over 1500 Federal databases, going beyond what is available on FirstGov.

INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections Academically-oriented, covering lots of resources, with annotations and searching and browsing capabilities. Make sure to click on a broad-category database listed at the bottom of the screen if you want to browse.

A Collection of Special Search Engines Academically-oriented. Tons of links, fairly well organized by subject.

Digital Librarian: a Librarian's Choice of the Best of the Web Personal choices by a librarian of interesting sites in a number of categories. Doesn't try to cover something in all areas, and subject categories are non-traditional at times, but a lot of fun to browse and often provides a quick intro to searching in a particular area.

Search Adobe PDF Online Search more than a million summaries of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files (not usually accessible through search engines) on the Web.

MagPortal.com Indexes and links to magazine articles available free on the Web. Currently includes over 120 magazines. Has a similarity feature; for many articles, click on an icon and come up with a list of similar articles. Much of what it covers is "visible" to search engines, but some of it's not, and it offers a way to focus on magazine-type material only.

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Search Engine News

Do you really want to keep up with Web searching developments? Below are the resources you need to use - frequently! I use them to keep up with what should be in my tool kit, and you'll see that reflected in this site.

ResearchBuzz! Great Internet Research News and Information Check daily for Tara Calishain's running chronicle of resource discoveries on the Web that help in research, including search engine news. Or get the weekly newsletter.

Search Engine Guide: Search Engine News Check daily or sign up for daily newsletter. Culls a variety of sources for search-engine-related news, includes brief summary of each listing.

The ResourceShelf Gary Price, creator of Direct Search, provides all the searching and invisible Web news he gets in this Weblog. Invaluable; check daily. Formerly known as The Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk.

Search Engine Watch Danny Sullivan maintains this site; he writes longer news pieces every one to two weeks, but he also provides Moreover.com's constant scrape of "Search Engine Headlines from Around the Web." He has a free monthly newsletter, but check the headlines daily.

TVC Alert Genie Tyburski's The Virtual Chase is the home of this valuable daily newsletter. Focuses on legal research, but also generally useful.

Search Engine Showdown A project of librarian Greg Notess, this site is absolutely essential for comparing search engines. Includes a news feature.

About Web Search Search engine optimization specialist Jennifer Laycock is reviving About's guide to Web searching. Check out her front page, as well as her current news picks.

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Copyright 2003, American Library Association






Also read the following Advice Sheet (prepared by the library staff at the University of California at Berkeley); some is duplicate, most is new and useufl.

Consultate anche il Foglio Informativo che segue, preparato dai bibliotecari dell'Università della California a Berkeley; certi siti sono gli stessi di quelli appena visti, molti sono nuovi e utili.


This document saved from http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/BeyondWeb.html


Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/BeyondWeb.html

Beyond General World Wide Web Searching
UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops

About This Tutorial | Table of Contents | Handouts | Glossary

Outline

1. Subject Directories and More Subject Directories
2. More ways to locate specialized searchable databases - the "Invisible Web"
3. Virtual Reference Rooms
4. Find discussion groups on almost any subject
5. Locating people by name
6. Explore the International Web from within other countries
7. Suggestions for ways to stay up to date

IMPORTANT: Keep search terms broad in all the resources listed on this page (except when searching the Usenet discussion groups). You are NOT searching the full text of web pages as in search engines. You are only searching the directory's contents (subject categories, descriptions).


1. Subject Directories

Hand-picked web pages and more, usually annotated, and classified by subject.
Highly Recommended
For more guidance, see TABLE of Features for these 5 Recommended Subject Directories)

Title

URL

Comments

Librarians' Index
to the Internet

www.lii.org

Superbly annotated and carefully selected gathering of valuable web sites on many topics.

Infomine

infomine.ucr.edu
/Main.html

Collection of over 110,000 annotated scholarly links reflecting selected university-level subjects/disciplines.

Academic Info

www.academic
info.net

Rich collection of web pages, databases, links to full-text publications, organizations selected primarily for academic research at the undergraduate level and above.

Yahoo!

www.yahoo.com

The biggest and best subject directory. Scarce evaluations. Page authors often supply what you see, not Yahoo! editors.

About.com

www.about.com

A sometimes academic collection of "sites" on many subjects, each overseen by a "guide." Uneven quality but often worth consulting. Shopping, chat, and casual emphasis that can be annoying.

More Directories
NOTE: Since subject directories are hand-selected and usually evaluated carefully, you may want to consult more than our top-recommended five, above. Each has unique content and a unique emphasis. We therefore continue to list additional subject directories here.

Title

URL

Comments

Search Tips

UCB Internet Resources by Subject

www.lib.berkeley.edu
/Collections/
acadtarg.html

Many links to Internet resources on many academic disciplines selected by UC Berkeley Library subject-specialists.

-

Internet Scout Report Archives

scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives

Search the archives of the oldest collection of selected web sites.

AND (default), accepts " " for phrases.

Britannica's "Web's best sites"

www.britannica.com/

Select "Web Sites" instead of "All Britannica" to focus on selected sites.

AND (default), OR, NOT, ADJ may be used; * accepted for truncation. " " makes phrase.

BUBL link

bubl.ac.uk/link/

Large subject directory with British focus, covering many academic and other topics. Search at bottom of subject categories.

-

Martindale's The Reference Desk

www-sci.lib.
uci.edu:80/HSG
/HSGuide.html

Extensive health science links in this multimedia research collection.

-

Price's List of Lists

www.freepint.com/
gary/listof.htm

Hundreds of "bests," "mosts," and other useful as well as trivial lists and statistics.

Browsable and unfortunately not searchable. Use CTRL + F to try to locate a list by a word in its name or description.

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Information Sources

www.december.com
/cmc/info/

Also known as the "December List," a vast collection of links on computers, the Internet, communications technology, including journals, major sites, major projects and more.

-

Subject Area Links

webpages.marshall.
edu:80/~jmullens
/subj_areas.html

A professional educator's collection of useful links in a number of subject areas. Highly selective and filled with information. Browsable, not searchable.

-

WWW
Virtual Library

www.vlib.org

Subject guides mostly academic on many subjects. Not annotated or evaluated. Many excellent.

Browsing by subject category or alphabetical list recommended. Search often misses things.

Suite 101.com

www.suite101.com/

Large, portal-type directory built by over 1,000 volunteer experts. Membership not required in most areas. Uneven quality, but often excellent and academic, depending on the subject. Click on the author of a section to view credentials. The site offers a lot of distractions like chat and has a lot of friendly, popular stuff along with the serious.

Browse, view complete list of subjects, or search. Search stems, resulting in peculiar matches.Click on LINKS or WEBSITES to find what Gateway pages there are.


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2. Finding Databases on Your Subject (The Invisible Web)

If you discover a database devoted to your field of inquiry, it can be like striking gold. Databases exist on all sorts of topics and for many purposes (social, scholarly, scientific, research, legal, commercial, trivial, ...) Here are some ways to hunt. Keep your approach VERY broad and general. Back way back.
Highly recommended
See the Invisible Web TABLE of features for additional strategies for finding the Invisible Web, and for more description of, and comparison between, these resources.

Title

URL

Comments

The Invisible Web

www.invisibleweb.com/

Claims to be the largest collection of searchable databases on the Web.

Direct Search

http://www.freepint.com/
gary/direct.htm

From Gary Price, author of the List of Lists (above), a browsable collection of useful links to over 800 searchable sites on many research topics.

Internets

www.internets.com/

Large collection of searchable databases.

A Collection of Search Engines

www.leidenuniv.nl/ub/biv/freebase.htm

A browsable list of many resources. Invisible Web sites begin about 1/3 the way down the page.

Complete Planet

www.completeplanet.com/

A huge collection of searchable databases that also contains other types of sites.

Freeality Internet Search

Freeality.com/

Browsable collection of mostly popular searchable databases with some good niche categories of possible academic interest.

More...

Title

URL

Comments

Librarians' Index to the Internet

lii.org

Consult the Databases retrieved from any broad subject search.

Yahoo!
or
Google

www.yahoo.com
or
www.google.com

Search for directories and search tools in specialized subjects. Here are three suggestions for doing this:
Search a subject term and the word database:

Example: civil war database


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3. Virtual Reference Libraries

Online dictionaries, handbooks,directories, indexes, etc.

Title

URL

Comments

UCB Library Reference Resources

sunsite.
berkeley.edu/

Collection of hundreds of reference resources about UC, UCB, other universities and libraries, and many general reference resources. Also links to many online reference and full-text resources (some available only to UCB patrons, defined as logging in from a berkeley.edu Internet address).

The Internet Public Library Reference Center

www.ipl.org/ref/

Attempt to replicate a library reference room "without walls" on the Internet. IPL is similar to using a reference room, with links to many resources by type and/or subject.

iTools

www.iTools.com
/research-it

Superbly convenient layout of basic reference tools (dictionaries and more).

Langenberg.Com

www.langenberg.com

Convenient collection of search boxes to different types of resources.


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4. Locating Peers through online discussion groups

Usenet Newsgroup Finding Aids
Newsgroups (a.k.a. Usenet) are accessed and viewed on the WWW. Netscape and IE support viewing Newsgroups. Although some academic disciplines prefer Newsgroups over Listserv-type e-mail groups as their scholarly forum, Newsgroups tend to be popular, fun, alternative.
The best tool for locating newsgroups at present is Google Groups.

Mailing List Finding Aids (such as Listserv® lists)
Mailing lists work through your e-mail, not on the WWW. You subscribe and receive mail from the group.
At present, the best tool for locating lists is Tile.net (http://tile.net).

5. Finding Individual People's Pages and E-Addresses

One suggestion is to look the person's name up in Google.
Another is Yahoo!'s people finder.

6. Europe and International

Title

URL

Comments

Search Tips

Search
Engine Colossus

www.searchengine
colossus.com/

An international directory of search engines featuring links to search engines from 195 countries and 38 territories around the world!

You may use either English, French, Spanish, or German when using Search Engine Colossus. Global, country, and subject based search engines are listed.

Yahoo!'s international guides.

www.yahoo.com/

Select country's name from bottom theYahoo! home page. Contains wide range of information and resources within countries covered -- aimed at the people of each country and in their languages.


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7. More Resources for Keeping Up To Date

Title

URL

Comments

Search Tips

Search Engine Watch

www.searchenginewatch.com

Service that monitors search engines and directories. Most of the site is offered free to the public.

-

Search Engine Showdown

www.searchengineshowdown.com

Rich compilation of studies and reports and news compiled by Greg Notess.

-

The Botspot

www.botspot.com/

Focus on Artifical Intelligence. Amazing collection of "bots" -- index by type of tool to advanced, often multi-purpose, multi-site, multi-resource, and interactive tools for locating information about the Web, advanced Web programming, Web searching -- both in general and with specific goals in mind (e.g., shopping, news, classified ads, software, and much more).

Browse "Bots by Category" or read "What's a bot?"


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Quick Links

4 types of recommended search tools: Search Engines | Meta-Search Engines | Subject Directories | Invisible Web

Copyright (C) 1996-2003 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Document created & maintained on server: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ by Joe Barker
Last update 31March2003. Server manager: Contact